Jager Henry Continues The Led Zeppelin Legacy But At His Own Beat

I'm music magazine, jager henry, john bonham, jason bonham, led zeppelin, black country communion, sammy hagar, noah thomas, heart of thorns,

Having the bloodline that Jager Henry has it is easy to understand why he might want to change his name. His grandfather is John Bonham of Led Zeppelin fame and his father is Jason Bonham member of the supergroups Black Country Communion and currently touring with Sammy Hagar as part of “The Best of All Worlds “ tour. Jager decided to changed this name to forge his own path. Jager packed The Viper Room for his first proper headline gig. An encounter with Noah Thomas set the wheels in motion for Jager’s EP Heart of Thorns

Jager Henry: Hi, Tim. Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you. How are you doing?

Jager: I’m good. On a drive to go see my father. Yeah, down in Laguna Beach. Such a beautiful place.

Oh, I’m very jealous. All right, well I’ll get started and just jump right into this I know it’s a very limited time So let’s talk about the new EP Heart of Thorns. How long had you been working on this?

Heart of Thorns has kind of been in the works for a little bit I wouldn’t say too long because it kind of came to us so naturally, but I started working with so many producers and then one of my good friends, Noah Thomas, he and I just decided to do a session together when we had a free day and I’ve been humming this melody for the title track in my head for hours and we kind of just started there. We were inside of our friend’s house, like couch on the floor, little microphone set up with the interface that was like $50 and just wrote this song, a few months back that happened and then I just decided to ask him like, hey, we should just do a couple more of these ’cause we felt so comfortable together, and after that it was history. Went into a studio and three songs came just right then and there just from like our instincts, and I guess our compatibility of working together. It was just like I don’t know it’s actually like even indescribable like it kind of just happened, and it was a beautiful moment when it did

So you and him wrote all those songs on the EP together?

Yeah, me, him, and then there was a couple times I wrote with my friend Lil Lotus, who features on Heart of Thorns, and my friend Sace6.

Were there other musicians that helped contribute to the recording of the EP?

Noah is an artist himself and a producer, so there’s times I would kind of like write a verse and ask him his input on it, or there’s times where like my friends, like Lil Lotus, when he was in the room. How he came to be a feature is he had an idea for the second verse of the one song, and I was like, “Why don’t you just put that down yourself?” And it kind of happened naturally. But normally there wasn’t more than two or three of us in a room. It would be me, the producer, and one of our friends, and they were there just giving ideas and help like that in wordplay. Sometimes artists can be many men of repeating themselves, and they’d be like, “You said that word,” and then we’d find a new alternative to it.

The EP has seven songs on it and a preface. Were those the only seven that you worked on, or did you have others that you eliminated?

Oh no, we made about 25 songs, me and my friend Noah, and we kind of knocked it down to these seven, because these seven I kind of made in order to where they kind of tell a story if they’re played in the right pattern, and you can even hear on one of the songs called “Closer to Heaven,” it’s featuring Noah, who is the producer of the EP.

The other songs that did not make the EP, are there a possibility they’d be released as singles or on another EP or album down the road?

Jager: The goal for me, because this is my first project, so I didn’t just want to put out an album right away. I kind of wanted to do Heart of Thorns EP and then have the Heart of Thorns album. them like a redux. So my goal is to have like two or three of the songs that are on the EP redone, whether it’s with features, whether it’s redesigning, whether it’s turning the track into a whole different sound, and then adding some of these songs on there as well that didn’t make the EP, and yes, also dropping some of them as singles.

Now you went down the road of doing an EP, and a lot of artists these days are just doing singles. So what was the thought process of releasing an EP as opposed to just releasing singles?

Jager: I had been releasing singles for a little bit of time, and I had now started going on tours, where I was playing shows with a couple thousand people to shows with a couple hundred people and the singles I had out, don’t get me wrong I love the music I make, but these were some of the songs I was like really really proud of and like truly felt like my authentic self and we’d be on tour playing these songs as you can see all over YouTube playing songs that are unreleased and we’ve… recently been in the talks of more tours and we’re playing a couple festivals as well, and I was like I don’t want to go out there and just keep playing these songs that aren’t out or they’re dropping one by one I’m willing to make the move to put all these songs out so at least when we play a show we’ll always play one or two to unreleased tracks to get people excited, but I was like, I kind of want them to know the words of the songs that are out or know the sound that’s coming, and it was just funny because we’d go and play shows every time with my father, and people were Shazamming the music in the crowd and I was playing unreleased music. So I was just like, I think it’s time to put out more than just one single at a time and really have the option where people can come to the show and know what we’re about to play and not just be listening to something they haven’t heard before.

How has life on the road been? How has the touring been?

Jager: The tours are amazing. The reception from the crowd has been great. It’s always a fear when you’re being the opener that the crowd isn’t going to understand you. The reception from the crowd they really seem to really pull in. We’re doing to the point where the unknown songs by the end of the set or by the end of the song people are singing it back to us.

How important is it for you to step out of the shadows of your bloodline of your father and your grandfather?

Jager: Um, I wouldn’t even say stepping out of the shadows. I kind of, uh, just like to do me, like, no matter what you do in life, the internet footprint, your name will always follow you, and that’s why in the beginning of this, I kind of was like, I’m going to go by Jagger Henry, because, that’s me and then they don’t have to know me for the name, they know me for the music and uh… it was always a fear in the back of my mind. I would make music and I wouldn’t put it anywhere because, not scared of the repercussions, but you know as a younger artist I was always living in that fear of I’ll never live up to that name and then I kinda just got comfortable with the dream I was chasing and felt like end of the day I’m still creating music whether I’m a drummer, a singer, or guitarist. I never feel like I step out the shadow, I kind of appreciate it because it definitely makes me have to work a lot harder.

What was the best piece of advice they have given you over the years?

The best advice anyone has given me or my father?

Your father.

The best advice my dad gave me was don’t worry about what anyone says. If you can walk on stage and sing music that you’re proud of and put a smile on your face then you’re doing more than most people.

The EP has been released, is there any works for videos for any of the songs?

There’s videos for “Heart of Thorns,” the title track, there’s a video for “Mortal Sacrifice,” and we’re working on a music video for “Bite Down” right now.

What else can fans look forward to from you in the upcoming months?

Well, we’re going to be putting out a lot of visualizers. We’re going to be playing a lot more shows, whether they’re underground or known shows. We’re going to always constantly try to be out on the road with people, and a lot of singles are going to be ready to go after this EP comes out to keep the peoples sparked and just creativity.

You mentioned the underground shows. How important is it for you to keep being out there in the public’s eye, hearing your music, hearing you, and seeing you?

I think that’s one of the things that died down in the industry, is a lot of people just kind of put a video on internet and put a song out and expect that to do something for them and it does, you know don’t get me wrong a lot of people have made a name for themselves like that but I believe in connecting with people like intimate shows and stuff like that is such a big project and a big like promise to the world because we can all say we have our favorite artist but not many times you can say you saw your favorite artist play a show to 200 people where it was intimate and you felt like you were really there so I definitely feel like playing these underground shows are more of the fun and connecting with people are more of like a human base not just I’m on a stage or in the crowd type of base

So how important for you is that connection for you to your audience, rather it be a 200 crowd or a 2,000 crowd.

Yeah, it’s very important to me because I feel like, as an artist, if you can’t connect with people, they won’t understand or resonate with what the project is or how the music is supposed to be felt, because we all hear music and hear it in our own way and resonate it within so many ways and relationships. to it. You know, there’s so many songs you can relate to from many artists that they might have multiple meanings, but I feel like it’s truly important to keep these shows going so people can always feel like they’re there and they’re not just hearing it from one side of the story.

Well, I know my time is almost up, so is there anything that I have not covered that you feel is important to get out there?

I just believe that this EP is kind of the direction I wanted to step into, and was, I would say, scared to put out, and it’s just, I hope that everyone enjoys it as much as I did making it, and I’d love to hear everybody’s feedback on it.

I want to thank you so much for taking time to do this. I greatly appreciate it and wishing you much success with the EP.

Thank you so much.

Interview by I’m Music Magazine Writer Tim Board